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12 Jul 2011

thriving on less project: the beginning

Upon my return to the family home from London due to the end of my second academic year at university, a clearout of my room and all the clutter made me realise just how much c r a p I had amassed throughout my teenage years! With that in mind, I started looking for ways to declutter, save money and as a result thrive on less. Googling for ideas on how to achieve this goal, I came across this site: The Power of Less. On that site, there is a free e-book you can download called 'Thriving on Less' and I really do recommend it. The tips in it are good - they are mostly about living a 'simpler' life where we have to recognise that enough means enough and that being able to thrive is more important than more.
So my first stop. My wardrobe. Now, this was my wardrobe at university from a few months back:

Now, at home, I have to confess that I have a far bigger wardrobe than this (it's built in so I didn't (technically) have a big one by choice) and for that reason, I kept a lot of clothes I never wore. I kept ones that held sentimental value and even PJs went into my wardrobe! Instead, I did a clear out (afraid I have no before photos) and this was the end result:

I put clothes I hadn't worn in over half a year into a pile and then clothes that had literally had their day into another pile. I then put the first pile into a plastic box - these are the items I will be selling (an extension of this blog where I have 'listed' the items I would like to get rid of!). The second pile were put into a bag and the items will be used as cloths for washing windows with, etc.

Next, PJs and loungewear went into a chest of drawers which I already had. But, the only difference was the fact that these drawers were full of clutter! Out went the clutter and in went my loungewear and nightwear. The same applied to my sports clothing. In the summer, I tend to go out for runs instead of play netball as my local club has changed so much (in a bad way though) that I don't enjoy local netball here anymore and instead, enjoy university netball much more.

Sorting through all the clothes made me realise just how much money I had 'wasted' on clothes which I never loved for long enough to wear over and over again. As a result, I'm going to be starting a '30 day freeze' where I won't be purchasing any clothes online or offline for 30 days. After this, if I come across anything I want to buy, I'll add it to a new '30 day list' with the date I added that item onto the list. If, after 30 days, I still find myself wanting/craving that said item, I will go and purchase it. But only if I seriously can't stop thinking about it!

The key to this though, is that my wardrobe isn't completely finished yet in terms of 'decluttering' as I'm pretty sure I still have items in there which I won't wear for another six months - but that's fine. One of the philosophies of 'Thriving On Less' was doing things gradually!

Another thing with doing a wardrobe clearout was that it enabled me to see what gaps needed filling in it - hence that purchase of an Aquascutum raincoat in the previous post!

Next stop? Lifestyle decluttering. Stay tuned for that!

P.S. Hope you guys like the new layout and colour scheme. Hope you're also ready for the launch of two new pages on my blog - the money tab - soon to be renamed; and the 'happiness' tab :)